A Garden of Rust and Salt
by Virgins-and-Surgeons
Summary: Truly, it takes a monster to understand a monster. Nnoitra Jiruga's new interest is a monster, that's for sure. It's what makes twisted serial killer 'Jackal' so interesting to him. The Quinta is just waiting for his new chewtoy to fall into his grasp.
1. The Jackal

Another rainy day in Sendai. Just another rainy day.

The tall ominous figure stood high above the streets, in mid air. One singular, slitted eye tracked those walking below him on the streets, unknowing of the creature that could probably level the entire block on a whim. He stared down, hunting for a human. Something of interest, to keep that flippant attention of his for any amount of time. One person in particular, to be precise.

Nnoitra Jiruga found the particular person's soul, quickly finding it and sonidoing to the ground before beginning in a hurried clip after the particular soul's scent, blowing past the people roaming the streets. It was a bad part of the city, so the ones still out this late at night were thugs and junkies, ones Nnoitra sidestepped on his path after a figure dodging the street lamps ahead of him. The figure was walking in a curious way, one without rhyme or reason to their step, without a destination. It swayed as it attempted to find a place to go, randomly turning down a dark alley and heading there. Nnoitra stalked its steps, as he had before. The object of his interest would either sit around or actually do what Jiruga came to spectate on, and as the person before him walked down the dark alley, it stopped suddenly. Nnoitra stopped as well, near a decrepit TV store playing breaking news about a body found in a suitcase downtown. A female anchor was speaking, and Nnoitra paid the anchorwoman a disinterested glance as he returned to the sight before him. Just something about that serial killer at it again, the sadistic fuck disemboweling people and entire families in the most vicious sort of way. Jackal, they called the killer, mostly because of a major screw-up. They knew Jackal for his laughter, high and screeching and blood chilling as he left crime scenes. But when they named him Jackal, they really meant Hyena. Jackal stuck, and was proved more and more correct as they found old abandoned hideouts and then found evidence of cannibalism. Jackal was on a bloody and random spree, and the police were investing nearly all their time in capturing him.

Walking forward, Nnoitra observed the figure he'd been stalking standing before another larger figure, a man with a twisted sneer and short ratty black hair, wearing clothes that showed off his considerable physique. He wasn't nearly as tall as the invisible Jiruga standing a few feet away, but he was considerably mountainous. Kind of like a smaller, human version of Yammy. Right now, he was standing in front of a woman with deep reddish colored hair pulled back into a ponytail, staring up at the man blocking her path. "Who're you." She asked in a decidedly dull tone, and the man let out a sharp, barking laugh. "Ya shouldn't be out so late. You might run into some…bad people." He threatened eerily, taking a step forward. The woman's eyes widened and she took a step backwards, terrified to the point of it being very stiff. "Y-you're…you're not…" She muttered in terror, and the man before her produced a long hunting knife and let her see it catch the dim light. "That's right, dear. You'll know me as Jackal." The serial killer grinned, moving around the terrified stiff woman so that her back was to the wall, and she pressed against it leaning her limp arm against a dumpster.

"Wh-what are you going to do with me??" She breathed, and Jackal chuckled ominously. Taking the long blade of his knife, he pressed it against his thumb and flicked it across to draw a bit of blood while talking, to back up the crazy. "Well, I'll do with you what I did with all the others. I'm gonna shove this knife in you an' cut you from pussy to chops, and decorate this alley with your intestines. I'm gonna bathe in your blood, bitch." He told her while advancing, leaning in and laying the flat side of his knife against her cheek and staring into her eyes. She had closed them, speaking slowly.

"From pussy to chops?" She asked him, and he laughed in a dry, loud crackling sort of way while pressing the knife harder against her flesh. "That's right! 'Cuz I'm the fucking Jackal!" He finished madly, grabbing her by the front of her black overcoat and dragging her inside the decrepit old apartment next to them, abandoned for what looked to be a very long time. Nnoitra followed, watching the Jackal drag the kicking woman inside. He tossed her against the floor, standing between her and the door as the invisible Espada watched on from the corner of the room. She stood and attempted to dodge his grip but was unsuccessful, being grabbed and pinned against the crumbling concrete wall hard. Jackal leaned forward, growling in her face as the knife dug into her shoulder. "Any last words, bitch?" He asked her with a grin before giving another sharp, loud, and painful to hear laugh, and she was silent a moment.

"Yeah. Your laugh sounds like shit." The woman spoke in an entirely new tone, completely different from the fearful cries of earlier. Jackal cried out in surprised and staggered back as the woman walked forward with purpose in her step, slamming him against the opposite wall with a larger hunting knife in his gut. He swore loudly, voice hoarse in terror as she twisted the knife with a sadist's grin. The low light from an outside street lamp illuminated her face once again, the redheaded woman's right eye covered in a black patch, her singular green eye wide and crazed. "Ya know, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." She crooned to him, sawing the viciously curved knife upwards to see his eyes roll back in his head. Her grin turned to an enraged snarl, as she jerked it to the side and felt his intestines bulge against her hands. "I don't like taking credit for work that isn't mine, _Jackal_."

He shoved her back in a sudden movement and she only staggered a couple steps, seeing him staring down in detached and absolute horror at his innards in his hands, before forgetting about it and lunging at her with his own knife. Unlike he, who dodged the knife with fear of the blade as his 'prey' had swung, she didn't move a bit when he jammed the knife in her shoulder and twisted it in panic. He caught sight of not a mad grin, but of a deadpan stare right into his eyes. "You're afraid of the knife. No killer can be afraid of their knife." She told him blankly, twisting around him quickly and hooking her foot under his, dragging them out from under him and causing him to hit the ground with a powerful slam. Instantly did she drop down and straddled his waist, pulling off her black overcoat to show bright red clothing that brought out the color of her hair, the tie holding it restrained in a ponytail pulled out and tossed away as well. Now she was a wild beast, a Jackal beyond any other. Nnoitra watched from his corner in hot-blooded anticipation of the killing moment, another murder in her long legacy of death. Her hands were as bloody red as any Arrancar's, and she loved every moment of the cutting and the killing. The nameless woman retrieved her knife from his gut, grabbing a hand of his and impaling it with the wicked blade right to the floor. He screamed hoarse, and she laughed. Not just any laugh, and not his laugh either. A loud, whooping, screeching shriek that could be perfect for a more euphoric version of a hollow's scream. It was one of the things Nnoitra loved the most when he watched her kill, to hear that laughter of hers. Sent excited chills right through him. She grabbed his knife from her shoulder, dragging it out without so much as a blink of her eyes. With wonder, the redhead appraised the blade. "This blade is shit. Cheap shit." She let the guy beneath her know, grabbing his other hand and impaling it to the floor as well. Reaching into her clothes, she retrieved a larger knife with a huge hook on the end, something that the fake Jackal seemed to know what its purpose was. He started screaming and she growled, stabbing the knife into the wooden floor next to his head. "Shut the fuck up, you picked a good spot to kill a person. Nobody can hear us." She growled, jerking the knife free and twisting it around to gouge into the wound in his stomach. The blood dyed her hands all over again, and she proved to the fake Jackal exactly what flavor of insanity he was fucking with as she dug her hand into the wound and leaned down, running her tongue along the bloody gash as she dragged out his intestines. Her victim was losing his voice by now, and she retrieved her knife to dig out his left eye. More screams, as she tossed the offending organ away. "You got a perdy screamin' voice." She grinned as she said it, reaching up with her hooked knife as he jerked at the blades holding his hands to the floor, unable to kick off the woman sitting square on his waist. She reached up with practiced precision, placing the cruel hook where it belonged and giving a hard twist, hearing the rib bone snap. By now she was getting tired of hearing screams, and so the woman reached into his mouth and pulled out his tongue with a sigh, tossing that over her shoulder as well.

"You know, you really picked a bad night." She sighed, laying the soiled knife blade against her cheek as he gargled on his blood. "I was really just wanting to go home and go to sleep. Had a real bad day, y'know?" She muttered, looking up at the ceiling curiously. The man gargled again, and she returned her grinning attentions to him. "Oh right! I'm being so inconsiderate; here I have a guest, and I'm talking about my shitty day." She smiled, watching the hot stinking blood dying her hand drip down onto his pale face, before she pulled her knife up and went from his groin to his throat, slicing him open. "From pussy to chops, eh?" She mused with a smile, before seeing him in his death throes. She tsked, slitting his throat finally and instantly jerking back as the blood splashed up in her face. "Damn, you're a squirter, huh?" She sighed, wiping at her face. Quickly, Nnoitra watched her become enamored with the bright crimson color staining her hands again.

Sure, she was just some human psychopath. But she was a human psychopath that Nnoitra took great pleasure in watching at work. Even more, he loved watching her go into the blood phase after every kill, draining every bit of blood that she could onto the floor, laying and bathing in it. With her clothes on of course; she was technically still in high danger, rolling around in the blood of her victim next to his cooling corpse full of knives, but she never cared, and Nnoitra was happy that she didn't. This psychopath named Jackal went into a sort of intoxication with the blood, licking it up off the floor. Nnoitra was watching her get wasted off the blood. She didn't move for a while beyond lying in the thick hot puddle, the heavy scent in the room making it all the more intoxicating. Nnoitra watched her silently, watched her roll now and then and saw the thick liquid soak through her clothes and her already blood red hair, knew she'd be a huge target from all the blood covering her face, her hands, her torso, her everything.

It felt like hours later that he watched her roll to her knees and stare blankly right through him, absolutely drenched in bright red blood sticking her hair to her face. She stood, the blood dry and stiff on her body and cold around her feet. Moving to the body, she got to work gutting him and artistically draping intestines along the room, eventually taking everything for decoration and leaving his body an empty split husk. Finally retrieving her knives, she stuck her hand in the cool puddle and began to write a message along the wall.

_Hush little baby don't say a word,_

_For your last screams won't be heard._

_Forgive me father, for I am sin._

_I've gone off and killed again._

She finished, signing it with a long smear across the wall through the cursive name 'Jackal'. How pretty, all over again. Finishing up, she slipped out the door as Nnoitra followed, listening to her cackle and shriek like a banshee, or a hollow. The loud laughter echoed very nicely, and Nnoitra once again followed her as she hurried out with her tools and into the night, now her cackling going down into a mad giggle. It slowed as well though as she hurried through familiar dark alleys, and eventually a somber silence accompanied the sounds of her footsteps. This time Nnoitra followed her to a new hideout, watching her crawl up onto a closed dumpster, clambering onto the low roof of a flat, hurrying across and giving a good leap to a hanging fire escape ladder around ten or so feet off the ground. She caught it with one hand, her black overcoat back on her body to hide the bloody clothes completely soaked. Gripping tighter, she was able to pull herself up and crawl to the top, slipping in a broken window and moving around her temporary hideout; this time, an abandoned apartment building. Nnoitra just followed, without having to go up the ladder and just heading on steps of reishi. He didn't speak, she couldn't hear him anyway as he watched her shed bloody clothes and drop them on the floor. A clear path of discarded clothing was from the window to the bathroom, and he watched her slip off her pants as she disappeared in the decrepit bathroom. Jiruga followed her with leering eyes, tracing her curves. She wasn't gorgeous in a normal sense, not a supermodel and not really that attractive in a normal sense. Other than her vivid hair and the singular eye, she wasn't different from any other freak.

...Well, not to most, anyway. Not to those that didn't track her steps, didn't see her like Nnoitra did. Maybe only other sadistic fucks could really appreciate her work. Possibly, only sadistic fucks of Jiruga's caliber could appreciate it. And he did; she was pretty damn fascinating for a human. Pretty new to see a human enjoy killing so much, and he could appreciate that too. Plus, Nnoitra loved seeing blood, and she loved wearing it. He tsked as she moved to the shower, stepping in and letting the dark colored water wash the blood off of her and leave her a normal human being once again. Didn't like when she went back to the normal boring but odd self, liked her better as a killing angel wearing a mad grin and shrieking like a hollow.

Couldn't say that he didn't like watching her tits bounce when she got out of the shower and walked to grab a dirty and oft used towel, though.

She used the water still in the bathtub to wash her clothes, wearing only that red towel as she did. After she threw in the detergent bought especially to bring out those bloodstains (handy shit it was) and let them sit for a while, he watched the woman sit on the counter and grab her pack of smokes sitting nearby, lighting one up and taking a deep drag off it. She kept her right eye closed the entire time, the patch sitting next to her thigh. He knew she was trying to kill the adrenaline, keep her from going berserk and not being able to stop. Sometimes, he just wished that she'd go ahead and lose it, get killed and let him just do whatever the fuck he wanted to with her soul. Fuck, maybe that's what he was waiting for. Didn't want to do it himself and lose this obvious form of entertainment, just waiting for her to fuck up and get killed on her own so he could clean up later.

She yawned a bit, catching Nnoitra's attention again. Pulling her clothes out of the water and wringing them out, she tossed them over the shower curtain rod to air dry and pulled on her eye patch again, the cigarette still in between her teeth. A puff; smoke wafted after her as she moved past him, oblivious to his existence. He didn't know her name, and she never spoke it or let it be heard. All she seemed to be was 'Jackal', nothing more and nothing less. Jackal moved past him, and the lecherous Espada wanted nothing more at that moment than to reach out and pinch her ass as she went by, as he did with any poor female Numero he could get his hands on back in Hueco Mundo. He couldn't though, not yet. Nnoitra watched Jackal sigh openly, dragging out a set of nightclothes that were tinged with the smallest bits of red here and there. It was obviously used often, what she slept in at night when her bloodied clothes were drying. She dropped onto the dirty torn up couch, a stray spring sticking up like a knife that she maneuvered around as she laid down. The apartment building was long abandoned; she would be safe for some amount of time until the police widened their search areas. She would have to move again then.

Nnoitra watched her fall into an uneasy sleep and sighed in a bit of annoyance at her going to bed so early. He didn't even get to see her nice tits for very long at all this time. Knowing he would need to go back soon (the Quinta could slip away for a bit of time now and then, but not for too long), Nnoitra cast one last glance at her and with the right angle, grinned at getting a good peek down her shirt. Now content, Nnoitra opened a Gargantua back to Las Noches and left Jackal there, her invisible stalker temporarily gone. She would be free of that odd feeling of being watched, the one that made her walk just a little quicker in the dark of night.


	2. Normalcy

**((Graphic stuff again, because writing Jackal entails sick shit.))**

* * *

The Jackal opened her olive green eye, taking account of the dirty and torn up room she was staying in for the night. Maybe two, or even three if she was feeling dangerous. She felt for her eye patch, noting that it was indeed on her face as it should be. Hide the horror. She sat up on her elbows, moving slowly to sit up and glare dully at the room. She inhaled deeply, before releasing a deep breath and staring up at the ceiling almost annoyed. "I hate this world, I wanna die." She told the ceiling, waiting to see if this imaginary friend everyone called God would send a bolt of lightning through the window and cast her into Hell, where she belonged. A few seconds passed in silence, before she silently moved on to the bathroom and gathered her clothes, changing quickly from her nightgown into the dull and stained thin white undershirt, pulling on her red jacket over it and then her black pants. At least black didn't show stains, or she'd have been fucked by now. What with the gory murders and all. She glanced into the broken dirty mirror and fixed her red hair, vibrantly colored. Her pride and joy, the most striking feature aside from the black patch covering her right eye. People stared, they did. But this woman didn't care, didn't give a fuck what they thought of her. She'd slit their throats and lick the wound later on, anyway. Nobody asked her name anymore.

Name? Did she have a name? She...couldn't recall. Assuming the persona of Jackal did have it's drawbacks, and the loss of a name was one of them. Not that she'd ever had a real one, anyway. Sure, sometimes she needed one to get into places or get some things. Just pick an identity from the wallets of those she'd killed, never did anything that would need a photo I.D. so it was fine if she just tossed out some name. Hell, sometimes, Jackal could stick with one of them and do perfectly fine. For awhile, anyway; nothing ever lasted. But sometimes, even the sickest of fucks wanted a taste of normalcy, of what they didn't have and couldn't keep for very long. In the past, Jackal really did try to go back to being a normal human being. Dyed her hair, got a job, even had a boyfriend for a span of time. Not one that she actually cared for, but because it was _normal_. What _normal_ people did. Got a _normal _job, a _normal _apartment, a _normal_ boyfriend, had _normal_ sex, ate _normal_ things, did all that was _normal_ and nothing that was Jackal.

She really did hate normal.

Her normal job had a boss that would slap her ass and brush his hand along her upper thigh when she wore skirts and he walked past. Her normal apartment had rats and roaches, mold growing on the walls from a pipe leak that the landlord refused to pay to be fixed, mold that had made her ill the entire time they lived there. Her normal boyfriend was fucking some other slut on the side, then came home to fuck her. Bastard gave her chlamydia from one of the hookers he liked to pick up. Her normal sex was unsatisfying, because the cheating fucker was a quick shot. Her normal food was cheap, bland and tasteless. She got food poisoning more than once.

Jackal fucking hated normal. How those stupid shits wandering the streets outside dealt with this sort of hell every day and night, for all their lives, she wouldn't be able to fathom. Time to get a little bit weird.

She dyed her hair back blood red. Followed her boss home to his darling wife. Snuck in that night, sliced off his dick and shoved it down his throat as a gag. After a bit of lecturing, mad rambling more or less, she noticed he was about to die of blood loss and took a sledgehammer to his face, kept slamming it down with the fiery wrath of a punishing angel until his head was a smear of blood and bone chips, the occasional bit of brain matter here and there. Ripped him open, dragged out all his organs and draped them around his tied and gagged wife, wrapping intestines around her neck like a noose. She was crying, Jackal could remember that. It had been fun! Fun to steal the infant from the woman's arms, fun fun fun to bite its neck and rip out its throat, hear the woman scream in anguish a moment before the shrieking sobs became annoying to Jackal and the mother got a knife through the face over and over again, till she was dead as her husband and child. Sprinkled gasoline over their bodies, lit a cigarette and flicked the match on their corpses before disappearing into the night. That was back when she wasn't so used to such rage, such unrefined hatred towards the world that she just lost herself. Sure as shit wasn't so used to doing those acts on another human being, so much that she got a good distance away and dropped near a dumpster in a dark alley, and vomited her innards out. Threw up until she just dry heaved, felt their blood through the black gloves she had worn burning her fingers. Stained them, really. You see, Jackal hadn't killed very much before that incident, and never that viciously. First taste of pure killing intent, and she had given in completely.

It'd been horrible, sickening, disturbing, terrifying. Euphoric. And after the pure rush of adrenaline receded a bit, enough where her legs wouldn't shake and her breath was able to be drawn again, she picked up her cigarette slightly bent and stained in her tasteless dinner and put it back in her mouth, the acidic taste of vomit from her smoke mixing with the heavy copper taste of the blood on her tongue ignored as she staggered back home. Jackal's breath was drawn raggedly and her blood raced through the near orgasmic rush of adrenaline still running through her veins, though she could calm herself down enough to clean up at home and wait for her baby to come home from work.

He did, and when he saw her with vibrant hair and sexy lingerie on, he was tripping all over himself to strip down and jump her. He apparently thought it was fucking awesome when she pushed him down on his back and crawled on top, and Jackal was feeling nice enough to wait for him to hit climax before she reached under the mattress, pulled out a butcher knife and started stabbing the shit out of him. And when he was good and bloody (and dead), she was finally able to get a good fuck out of his corpse. Best fuck of her life, actually. She gave him a kiss before taking another shower (get that extra blood of his out of her hair and off her tits), grabbing her shit and getting the fuck out of that apartment building. Bad idea to hang around and she was cutting it close, because not a block away and all those pipe bombs went off and blew that shithole down to the fucking ground. Entire apartment complex, all the tenants deader 'n shit. Fun.

And then Jackal was gone, off from her normal life, escaping and settling into the life of Jackal, serial killer extraordinaire. Sick fuck that would do anything for the rush derived from murder in the coldest and most senseless sense, the scourge of the city and top on the list of those that the police wanted in the ground. Hell, the entire world probably wanted her six feet under, though Jackal found untold amusement in watching the world automatically assume that Jackal was male. Just because when she heard the head of police openly provoke her into coming and showing herself, to quit being such a spineless coward striking down people in the night. And when the next family turned up eviscerated, the phrase "Eat my dick" was written on the wall in their blood, which lead them to believe she in fact had a dick. Really, saying "Eat me out" sounded like she wanted the police chief, and she sure as hell didn't, so dick was the quickest replacement that had the most force behind it. Tie between "Eat my dick" and "Suck my balls", but balls just made her think of those bouncy balls you could get for cheap in supermarkets and so she went with dick, because she didn't want to use cock and think of the police chief sucking on the head of a rooster as it flapped its wings and kicked around. That just made her giggle.

It had been three years since then. And Jackal was feeling better than ever with blood all over her hands and burning her face through the grin plastered all over it.

After slipping out of her shitty temporary home, Jackal spent the day hanging around various spots in the world, her hair in a ponytail and a calm look about her. Watched mothers run with their children, watched siblings play with one another, watched all the shit that was never within her grip. All the shit she didn't want. She was waiting for night to fall, waiting for a reason to wander the streets and find a target at random, take their life and revel in murder. And that night, she did just that with some couple walking down the street at night, like fucking idiots. Shouted for help, hid in a dumpster when the boyfriend came to investigate, jumped out and carved out his kidneys. He screamed, his girl ran to help him (why were humans so stupid nowadays? Fucking cattle), Jackal whirled on her and chased her down, she tripped and hit the fucking concrete and Jackal snapped her fucking neck with no remorse and screeching like a hyena. Not feeling too much like bathing in any more blood than what was on her already, Jackal signed a "Love, Jackal" on the wall and left. Tomorrow it would go again, repeat again and again and again until she had to leave the city and move to the next one, start all over again.

And really, without the woman's knowledge in the very slightest, she'd have a one-eyed fan of her work stalking her steps every bit of the way, waiting for the exact same event she was counting the seconds to. Both of them were just waiting for the day she'd fall, for that time when she lost the game and hit the fucking concrete a bloody mess. Because when she did, Jackal would be free of this shitty world, and Nnoitra Jiruga would have his favorite human toy to play with.


	3. The Game

Nnoitra Jiruga lazed around Hueco Mundo, bored out of his mind. Aizen had left the hollows tame, contented with power and serving him. Nnoitra was fucking bored with all the not-fighting happening around Las Noches, the lack of conflict lately. Sure, now and then Grimmjow would raise some hell and stir things up a bit, but it would settle and leave everybody fucking bored all over again. He was currently sitting in a chair beside a large window showing the desert sands of Hueco Mundo under the permanent night sky. the Quinta was bored, and he already wanted to track the Jackal down again. She was something interesting; always good to see a sadist ready to roll around in blood, fuck a corpse, cannibalize their own kind, anything really. She was just like a Living World hollow. She was interesting. But he didn't want to have her die when he wasn't around to take her soul away with him, didn't want those fucking shinigami to get their hands on her soul first. With how Jackal was, she'd retain her killing urge and just go mad in that Rukongai or whatever, kill everything she could before getting caught by shinigami and executed or some shit. And then what would Nnoitra have interest in? Nothing, that's what. No, he would have to be around when she died, so he could get his hands on her and do whatever the fuck he wanted with her.

Finding nothing he needed to do here, Nnoitra stood and opened a Gargantua to the Living World, slipping back through quickly enough. Back to that same old city, back to tracking down Jackal. He did quite quickly,watching her walk along the streets as a normal human. More like a demon hiding in human skin, but then again, Nnoitra was an Arrancar himself. He looked human, and everyone in Las Noches knew that he was one of the most inhumane hollows there. But now, his Jackal wasn't doing what she normally did. She looked different, more worn. More exhausted. Nnoitra moved to the ground and followed her steps.

She was so tired. Jackal was so very tired.

It was nearly that time of year again, the one she hated so much. Nearly that day. Damn.

She bought a few things at a drugstore; razors, a pack of sewing needles, some thread, disinfectant, a bottle of sleeping pills. Nnoitra followed her to the liquor store next, watched her buy some cheap beer and expensive vodka. They didn't question her age; she wasn't just some kid running around with a cleaver because she felt like it. No, Jackal was getting into her mid thirties now, and before long she'd be too fucking old to kill anymore. Had to be pretty damn spry to run all over the place and jump from roofs to grab fire escapes, then climb up to shitty abandoned apartments. Hopefully, she'd be dead by the time she couldn't go on.

It was late when she finally got back to her temporary base, and Nnoitra was disappointed that she didn't go out and kill that night. No, she sat down and she stared out the dirty broken window, and that was it. All night. Pissed him the fuck off that she'd just sit around, though he was curious as to why Jackal looked so very morose and thoughtful. That was it; Nnoitra would spend the night and watch her, because some shit was going down soon that he probably didn't want to miss. Fuck Aizen.

* * *

Nnoitra watched the next day as Jackal slept through the daylight, which doubly pissed him off. He was just tempted to strangle her himself and then kick the shit out of her soul for wasting his time. Around sunset though, she got back up and looked out the window a moment before standing, jumping out the window and sliding down the fire escape ladder to the wet concrete below her. Nnoitra followed, as Jackal walked silently along the streets and looked at this and that, as if she were in another time completely. He was actually getting annoyed with watching her wander the streets, stare at some random object for a good while, smile a bit, then walk off to another random object. She went on like this for a while, before coming to a spot Nnoitra had never seen before. It was a dead end alley, blocked off by garbage and shredded metal blocking the alley mouth. Jackal just jumped onto a low hanging gutter and crawled along it, dropping onto her feet on the other side. There, Nnoitra saw a bloodstain on the concrete wall, and on the ground right under it. It looked as if someone bleeding heavily had hit the wall, then slumped to the floor and bled out. Jackal moved closer, laying her hand on the long-dry stain and smiled a bit.

"Good to see you again, Snake." Jackal spoke aloud, and Nnoitra watched on, interested. Jackal leaned her head back, staring up at the sky. "I didn't forget." She said cryptically, retrieving the small pistol she always kept with her and aiming it at the sky. Jackal fired once, straight up, and stared on for a moment. Nnoitra looked up to see what she was looking at, but saw nothing. After a moment, Jackal let her arm drop and hung her head, speaking quietly. "Sorry Snake, no dice. Maybe next time." Jackal stuck the gun back in her belt, before pulling out one of the beers she'd stashed in her clothes. She opened it and dumped it out on the ground.

"You always liked the cheap shit." Jackal muttered, dropping the can and watching it roll into the trash heap at her back. People were already coming, she could hear their voices shouting about the gunshot. "Sorry Snake, I gotta be going. Hopefully, I won't be doing this next year." She finished, jumping up on the gutter again and heading across the roof of the building. Nnoitra didn't stick around to listen to the humans shout about some boring shit, following Jackal as the sun went down. She next headed outside of town, to the furthest reaches where the city ended and countryside reigned. Well, not really. It was more or less just a patch of clear land that Jackal walked upon, coming to stop at a particular spot where a rusty old knife was jabbed into the ground.

"'Sup Alpha." Jackal spoke to the ground, staring down morosely. "Still can't believe it's not me down there, and you standing up here." Nnoitra watched her continue on, now pulling out one of her knives and slicing her palm nonchalantly. The blood ran down and dripped on the ground, as Jackal ignored it completely. "Blood for blood, man. I just wish we could sit around and play our game again. I'm getting kind of lonely playing it by myself." She went on, before getting the vodka out. turning the bottle sideways, she poured out half the bottle on the ground. "You had a taste for vodka. Never knew why you liked this shit." Blood smeared the bottle as she handled it, closing the top and putting it away. She sighed, deeply. "I've visited Snake already. Wish I could visit Falcon too, but...ya know." Nnoitra watched her curiously, listening.

"I'm thirty five. Never thought the game would go on this long, you know? I've already won; I'm done playing. But no matter how much I try, seems like Imaginary Friend just won't let me die." Jackal muttered, looking down at what Nnoitra realized was an impromptu grave. Jackal smirked down at the knife, old and rusted. "That thing was your life, wasn't it? Never let me touch it, you greedy bastard. 'Fraid I'd break it or hurt myself, or some shit. I never thought you'd go first, me being as much of an idiot as I was back in the day. Fate works weird, huh?" She spoke again, closing her eye and waiting a moment in silence. She then turned, waving over her shoulder as she walked off.

"Time to play our game again." Jackal tossed back, before heading back into the city. She made her way back to the city, speaking aloud as she did. "Falcon, I miss ya man. Didn't think it'd end like it did. Sorry. All my fault what happened." She spoke to thin air, heading back into the dirty apartment. Nnoitra watched her pull what was left of the curtains closed, lighting some cheap candles around the room. "Time to play it again, huh?" Jackal muttered, slicing her other palm open and dripping the blood into the middle of the table, ritualistically. She then dropped her overcoat, pulling out some dirty and torn pantyhose and pulling it over her head with a nostalgic smile. "Well, Alpha, you always knew me best." She laughed, leaving all her other knives and her gun in the room save for one cheap one, far worse in quality than the one she usually had. She dropped from the apartment, heading through the streets with Nnoitra on her tail. Eventually, the woman found prey; a man walking alone in the street. Without provocation, Jackal stabbed him three times in the stomach and stole his wallet, running back to her apartment hideout. This confused Nnoitra. Why didn't she gut him, like she did with the others?

Jackal ran back to her apartment, dropping the wallet on the small table. "There you go Alpha, that was your dare." She told him, pulling the pantyhose off her head. Next, Nnoitra watched her drop to the floor in a sitting position, pulling the sleeping pills out of her pocket. He had an idea of what she was about to do, but just watched as Jackal popped the top off the bottle and smirked. "Falcon, you always were a crazy fuck." She muttered, before swallowing every pill in the goddamn bottle. Nnoitra cocked an eyebrow at the sight, as she tossed the empty bottle across the room. After that, Jackal washed the pills down with a cheap beer and what was left of the vodka, leading Nnoitra to believe she was actually going to commit suicide this time. When she finished the alcohol, Jackal pulled out a bullet from her pistol and snapped on a cheap lighter from her pocket, heating up the bullet under the flame for a few seconds. When Nnoitra could see that touching the metal burned her fingers, Jackal let the flame die and dropped the lighter with numb fingers, twisted open the bottom of the bullet and poured the hot gunpowder onto the table in a pile. With a razor blade bought from the store, she arranged it in a line and pulled out a twenty, rolling it into a tight cylinder.

"Let's do this shit, Snake." Jackal stated, snorting the line of hot gunpowder and slamming her fist on the table as she did. When the line was finished, she dropped the twenty and coughed hard, hanging her head limply. "Fuck!!" She swore loud, swinging her head back and immediately regretting it. The Quinta watched her sway dangerously, her singular eye rolling wildly around the room in an attempt to steady her. He watched her hit the fucking floor, instinctively rolling onto her side and vomiting. The redheaded Jackal closed her eye, passing out in her dirty apartment hideout.

Nnoitra was still pretty damn confused. But Jackal had proved herself shit house crazy before; he could only wait.

* * *

**((Next chapter: explanations, so don't worry about the confusion this chapter. Thanks for reading, you guys.))**


	4. Nostalgia

_"I'm just so tired of being alive! My friends, my dear cohorts in sin are dead. All three of them. They left me alone on this Earth, left me to thirty five years of killing, killing, killing, with no one to brag about it to. Thirty five years of watching the news and saying, "Oh, look. Somebody else that I murdered for the dull thrill of it. Oh, look- another person that calls me a monster, another one that provokes me and wishes me buried." I'm just so tired of it all, all the chases and the newspaper clippings and the news stories and the fact that I'm even getting bored with killing. That, is what is truly terrifying, don't you see? Killing is all that makes up my being. The thrill is in the disgust that I feel for doing it, for feeling the blood on my hands and the knowledge that I took another life, another father, another brother, another sister, another mother. I get more vicious, more sadistic in my methods over the years to keep up the disgust in my soul. It used to be like a drug, but now...now it's turning into another dull thrill, like if one has ridden the same rollercoaster over and over again with some sibling of some sort, who's young enough not to get bored of it. I know all the twists and all the turns, all the tips and the loop-de-loops of murder. And if I ever get bored of killing, unable to disgust myself any longer, then I am truly in Hell. I have nothing to live for, because I have no other purpose in life than to take it."_

* * *

Four figures surrounded a dirty table, the tattered curtains pulled closed and random candles placed around the room for an eerie, flickering source of light. They all had broken glass, pocket knives or some other sharp object held to their palms and with one quick motion, sliced the flesh open. Each held their bloodied hand over the center of the table, dripping blood onto the largest candle as it flickered but remained alive and the scent of heated blood filled the room. They pulled their hands back, now sitting them on the table flat as a low, rhythmic chanting began.

"Truth, dare, double-dare, promise or repeat." One began, a boy with blond hair cut raggedly short and pale green eyes. He softly chanted the bit, and when he started up again a second boy joined in.

"Truth, dare, double-dare, promise or repeat." The second boy chanted, having bright blue eyes and short brunette hair pulled into a rat tail. He was joined by a girl, who had vibrant blood red hair hanging unkempt at her waist and vivid green eyes.

"Truth, dare, double-dare, promise or repeat." She joined, turning her eyes to the final figure at the table, as everyone had. When the three finished that particular line, they heard him join in.

"Truth, dare, double-dare, promise or repeat." The final boy chanted, with coal black hair in a long ponytail and glass clear, piercing gray eyes, and with his line, they fell into silence again. The gray-eyed boy closed his eyes, his blood pooling on the table's dirty surface from the cut on his hand.

"Alright, we're all here." The boy went on, before gesturing to each of the members at the table. "Snake, stage name Boogeyman." He muttered, and the blond-haired kid smiled and nodded slightly. "Falcon, stage name Scarecrow." The brunette boy gave a nod. "Jackal, stage name Messiah." The redheaded girl nodded as well, as the ponytailed boy closed his eyes. "And myself, Alpha, stage name Werewolf." He stated, before giving a solemn nod. "Let's begin. As always, for this game we'll refer to one another with our stage names, and I will start."

Werewolf glanced to the newest member, a young girl with the oddest hair he'd ever seen and who swore up and down it was natural. She wasn't well-versed in their arts, not yet. But this was her first ever time playing their game, and it showed in how nervous she looked. "Messiah. Truth, dare, double-dare, promise or repeat?" He asked her, and she jumped a bit before mumbling out an answer. "Truth." She muttered, and Werewolf already knew what he wanted to ask.

"Ever dream about murder? You ever wish you had the guts to take lives?" He queried, and she stared blankly at her hands a moment before answering. "...Y-yeah, I...yes." Messiah finished, as Werewolf pondered her a moment. She wasn't used to their methods yet, but the girl had quickly become a member of their little family. She wouldn't tell them about where she'd come from, but the lack of three teeth on her left side and her skittish nature spoke to him in droves what she wouldn't say aloud. Now that it was her turn, Messiah glanced up to Boogeyman, the charming young boy that had a silver tongue. Not to mention that it happened to be forked.

"Boogey...truth, dare, double-dare, promise or repeat?" She asked, and the smiling boy didn't even think about it. "Dare." He told her, and they all knew that 'truth' was out of the question. Boogie Man had never been able to tell a straight truth, it was always some version of a lie. Although, this handicap worked in his favor for him being _very_ good at lying. Messiah thought on it a moment, before smiling a little bit. "I dare you to cut your other hand open." She barely had the words out when he cut his other hand on a broken beer bottle, looking bored. "_No_ imagination." Boogeyman sighed, before turning to Scarecrow. "Truth, dare, yadda yadda?" He queried, and Scarecrow sighed. "Why don't we go promise?"

"Alright, Scarecrow, promise me that if you ever get a girl, I get to fuck her." Boogeyman chirped, and Scarecrow answered instantly. "Done." He affirmed, before telling Werewolf "Pass". Werewolf glanced to Messiah again, taking the turn. "Truth, dare, et cetera?" Messiah blinked, steeled her will and answered him. "Dare." She stated, before hearing Werewolf's dare as he tossed some dirty pantyhose at her.

"Go out, stab someone, come back with his wallet." Werewolf stated simply, and Messiah stared blankly at her hands in which the pantyhose laid. Swallowing thickly, she pulled it over her head and accepted the knife from Boogeyman. The three boys watched her jump out of the two-story window, hit the dumpster underneath and then walk off. A half hour later, they saw her crawl back in the window covered in blood and obviously shaken beyond belief. She tossed a bloody wallet on the table, dropping the knife on the floor and sitting down pale as a ghost.

"...I didn't get a good angle. He collapsed. I don't know what happened after that. Ran back." was all Messiah would say, as they glossed past it and went on. A few more truths, some witty bantering between the polar opposites of Scarecrow and Boogeyman, before Boogeyman got his turn again and spoke the oft-repeated question to Messiah. She chose double-dare. Boogeyman pulled out a pistol from his belt and heated a bullet over the candle flame until it was too hot to hold, cracked it open on the table, scooted it into a line and then handed Messiah a twenty.

"Snort it." He smiled more or less sadistically, as Messiah did as she was told without a second question. She hissed in pain after the line was done, shaking her head and letting her long red hair fly around as she did.

"Hell!" Messiah hissed, as Boogeyman cackled with glee. She gave him a dare in return, told him to chew up some glass. He did, and finally grimaced as he did and then spent the time picking glass shards out of his gums. More dares, more truths, more promises that usually involved something that would prove either hilarious or sexually gratifying later, when they were old enough to appreciate sex a bit more. Finally, it came Scarecrow's turn again and he repeated the mantra to Messiah once more. Now it was early morning, though still dark.

"Double-dare." She told him, and he slid a bottle of sleeping pills across the table. "Swallow every pill in the bottle." Scarecrow dared dismissively, and Messiah stared at the bottle fearfully. She didn't dare argue with the double-dare, and quickly swallowed all the pills. The three boys watched her small body respond accordingly, namely going into a coma on the floor.

"Think she'll live?" Boogeyman asked Werewolf, who only sighed a bit. "If she doesn't, then Jackal wasn't cut out to be with us." He decided, before blowing out the bloody candle and deciding to see how Jackal, AKA "Messiah", handled it.

* * *

Five years later, and a family of eight walked back into their house after a good dinner out. Six boys, all of ages from mid-teens to early twenties laughed and playfully shoved each other now and then, all having a good time back with the family again. The mother and father smiled at their children, locking up the door behind them and walking into the kitchen to put down their coats. What they saw made the mother scream, and a few of the brothers swear aloud. The family dog, Thor, was laying with his neck broken on the linoleum flooring, head twisted at a grotesque angle and a kitchen knife sticking out of the left side of his skull. He'd pissed on the linoleum floor when he'd been killed, and as they all looked around for the untold danger within their home, the sound of something heavy being scooted in front of the front door caught their attention. When they looked, a thin figure was leaning against the couch moved quickly in front of their door, staring through them.

"Who are you?? Who the fuck do you think you are??" The father shouted at the figure hidden by the darkness of that corner of the room. Bright green eyes cut the dark, and sharp laughter reached their ears.

"Well, you don't remember me? Aw, I'm just...so...fucking...**hurt**!!" The figure spoke in an obviously female voice, starting out patronizing and warping midway through the sentence to turn horribly forced and hateful. Easily did she step forward into view, long blood red hair hanging at her waist and a terrible snarl on her face. She gestured to the dog at their feet, smirking a bit at it.

"Ah, Thor. What a pretty dog he was, though I was real sad to have to put him down. Well...not all too much, actually, taking into account how much he fucking bit me for no reason." She sighed, before seeing one of the brothers lunge at her. He attempted to punch her, only to have Jackal grab him by the arm and drag him forward into the blade of her hunting knife. It stabbed right through his eye, and blood mixed with aqueous humour stained her fingers as she let him drop and stabbed the knife in his throat.

"Ichiro, you were always so forward, never had any precision with anything you did." She sighed, hearing the mother scream and run to the back door, only to find a dumpster moved to set outside the door and hold it shut. The older woman stepped back, running to back herself against the wall and see as the red-haired devil grabbed another son that came at her with a kitchen knife, attempting to stab her. Jackal snapped her hand around his wrist, stabbing her own knife into his stomach and heard him scream, as she stabbed over and over again. Dragging the knife up, she snapped a rib with the hook of her hunting knife and laughed in his face, pulling her knife free and throwing him down to bleed out on the ground.

"Oh, Saburo. You were the one that shoved people down the stairs to watch them fall. Real prick, you were."

The remaining family went into wild disarray, some running for their lives and some running at the redheaded killer standing over two corpses. She was trained, quick. The third and fourth son fell as well, as Jackal lamented in a mocking fashion over killing Gorou and Rokuro. Only two other sons were left, both smart enough to run away. Jackal chased them down, shredding their throats and gutting the other. She laughed as she killed both Jirou and Shiro, letting them bleed out as she chased down the father and slammed him to the floor on the stairs, stabbing her bloody knife in his head over and over again until it was just a bloody mess in her hands.

"I'll miss you!!" She screeched in euphoria at his corpse, before leaping off the banister and cornering the mother, the sole survivor of the family. Jackal laughed while coming at her slowly, stalking up dangerous. "Well, it's just been too long. We really, really should've gotten together sooner." She crooned, covered in blood. The woman stopped, staring at the serial killer opposite her with dimly growing recognition.

"You...it's you again! I thought I was rid of you those years ago!!" The woman snarled, though Jackal could see that it was out of terror. It didn't matter though, Jackal snarled just the same with madness glinting in her eyes.

"Shut up, bitch!! You should've fucking killed me, not fucking let me run loose!! You brought this on yourself! I'll...now...I'm...I..." Jackal slowed down, stuttering madly as it all hit her again. She may be insane, but people as mad as she was had their weaknesses. She babbled on madly, holding her bloody knife to her head as the woman took the opportunity to run away and run up the stairs. Jackal regained herself, running after the woman with not mad glee, but absolute loathing and hateful rage in her eyes. The mother tripped on the headless body of her husband, hit the fucking stairs and screamed in terror. Jackal grabbed her by the hair, slammed her down against the stairs, and stabbed the knife in her mouth. Dragging it into the sides of her mouth, Jackal took enjoyment in carving her a smile from ear to ear. She snatched the woman up by her blood-soaked hair, dragging them face-to-face.

"Bitch, I'm real happy it happened this way. Shit's gonna be alright on my end, and there'll be one less bitch in the world." Jackal snarled, stabbing the woman in the stomach over and over again. The woman was screaming in pain, but also screaming insults and things that made Jackal stab even harder, over and over again.

"You little fuck! I should've snapped your fucking neck the moment you were born! Seventh child of a seventh son, and you were a fucking girl! You ruined everything, you little shit! I'm sorry I didn't fucking abort you, I should've!! I hope you fucking rot in hell!!" She screamed, and Jackal stopped stabbing to grab the woman by the hair and drag her to look right in her dull, emotionless green eyes.

"I'll meet you there, Mom. Watch your step to Hell, it's a long fall." Jackal spoke quietly, with seething rage behind her voice as she snapped her mother's neck and left her to rot. Slowly did Jackal walk down the stairs, looking over the corpses of her family. Six brothers, all hateful. A family dog trained to bite her and (hopefully) kill her. A father that ignored her, and a mother that slapped her around and chased her out that one fateful day. Running her fingers through a coagulating puddle of blood, Jackal wrote her name on the wall in running, smeared letters.

_'Kings And Queens Will Meet Their Guillotines'_ she wrote, signing it with the name 'Jackal' at the bottom.

"I never asked for this life, goddammit. Should've put me in a casket." Jackal spoke to the corpses in the room with her, before sliding out the open window and down to ground level, walking over to her four cohorts. Boogeyman, Werewolf, Scarecrow, and now Messiah. Those were their stage names, anyway.

"Hey Snake. Deal's a deal. You can fuck her corpse if you want." Jackal told him, and the blond young man smirked. "Ah, you know me too well, Jackal dear. I'll meet up with you guys later." Snake, AKA 'Boogeyman' told them, and the remaining three slunk off into the shadows of the night, Jackal's revenge complete.

* * *

Opening her eyes, Jackal sat up from the cold puddle of vomit sticking to her face and hair. The empty pill bottle was on it's side a few feet away, and her head was swimming. She wasn't dead. Again.

"Still here. But...damn...why'd I dream about the first game and...when I killed that bitch?" Jackal murmured to herself, remembering in her dream of being able to see with both eyes again. It was something that she missed, a little bit. Standing shakily, she made her way to the bathroom to have a shower and maybe throw up some more or drown. Nnoitra watched her, seeing her alive and sighed.

"Fuckin' waste of time." He growled, opening a Gargantua, and heading through. He'd come back, when she was interesting and fun again.


	5. The Lapse

A very long time, it seemed like. Sometimes, anyway; on occasion, it was as if time had jumped from the motley crew of kid killers to the singular survivor stalking the shadows, trying in hidden desperation to keep the adrenaline coming with every hunt, with every kill. Sometimes, Jackal really did feel like an old woman. And sometimes, she felt so damn young and naive, incompetent. And she always felt like someone was watching her, twenty four seven. It was entirely eerie, but something she only attributed to the inevitable onset of madness that the woman knew would be upon her soon enough. A black cloud, or maybe a velvet blanket; either one was fine with her, as long as she was so irretrievably insane in the end that everything became fun again, everything was worth living for again.

She just wanted that last burst of heliotropic bliss when nothing mattered and it was all for the rush, before going down in a burst of blazing glory, too dead in the end for anyone to throw in anything more than a grave. God knows what they'd do with her if she was thrown in prison; no telling at all, apart from everyone wanting to cut her and all, of course.

At the moment she was padding down the sidewalk, back into her normal disguise (not actually a very good disguise at all, to be honest), when a line of TVs in a beat up old shop began playing. She saw a horrific crime scene that was all too familiar; one of her recent victims. Quickly, Jackal slipped inside to pretend to be looking at knick knacks, while she listened to the TV broadcast. No better way to spend her day, anyway.

'Currently, the police have issued a message.' The anchor spoke, before the cameras switched off to a busy press conference with that head of police that had told her to surrender awhile back. He looked serious, and he looked mad as hell.

"To the deranged animal known as 'Jackal': the entire police force and police forces of the surrounding areas are all banding together on a massive manhunt. It will not end until you are caught, and put on trial. It won't end, Jackal. Not until we end it ourselves."

_'Talking in circles, Chief.'_ Jackal thought to herself dismissively, heading out of the shop with a bit of a sigh. They were finally stepping it up? Surprising, seeing how they were so fond of beating around the goddamn bush.

* * *

That night, Jackal was hunting again. She found a woman and child, and was quick to walk behind them closely. Dragging the woman off into an alley, Jackal was quick to slit her throat and gut her while dully noting as the blood coated her hands. The kid, probably seven or eight at the most, watched in frozen terror as Jackal turned from his mother and to face him, knife brandished. She grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt, dragged him off the ground and pinned him up against the wall, knife to his throat. With the blood on her hands and on her face and clothes, she knew she must look more a monster than a woman, but that suited her just fine. She made a better monster than a woman, anyway. The knife tightened, and she looked up into the kid's eyes and stared a moment. He had pale green eyes and deep brown hair, and he looked absolutely terrified of her.

The knife tightened, a drop of blood running down the blade, as Jackal snarled and attempted to cast out the image and resume the killing. No witnesses, no survivors. But his eyes, damn the kid's eyes, she should cut them out. But slowly, her grip on the kid loosened and she dropped him to the ground, next to his dead mother. Jackal didn't look back at him, not in the least. But she kept her back to him, stuck her knife in her pocket and stood there.

"Run. Save yourself and fucking run."

The kid remained still, because she didn't hear footsteps.

"Didn't you hear me, goddammit? I told you to fucking run away from me!" Her voice raised into a loud snarl, almost a screech, and she heard staggering footsteps heading away from her at a pace as fast as the kid could probably muster. As the kid's footsteps faded, Jackal snarled and punched a stone wall as hard as she could.

"Fuck!!" She shouted, remaining still a moment. After another moment, Jackal fixed herself and began to run, heading back to the dumpster, the low roof, the running leap to the fire escape. The rung creaked under her hand, but held as she ignored it and headed up to her secret hideout, marching around in a cocktail of psychotic rage and shame at her inability to kill a fucking kid.

"I can slaughter men!" Jackal stomped her foot on the ground.

"I can dismember women!" She kicked the torn up couch as hard as she could, feeling pain bloom in her foot but ignoring it at the moment.

"I can even rip out the throats of fucking infants!" A knife was slammed into the wall, not too far but a bit. She threw the knife down on the ground in a huff, turning around and stomping around the room.

"So why the fuck can't I kill some snot nosed brat bawling over mommy's corpse??" She roared, slamming her hand onto a wall and immediately jerking it back against her body, swearing loudly as she did. A quick glance at the wall showed the culprit; a rusty nail was sticking out of the fucking wall, now dripping with blood. Jackal swore loudly, offhandedly wrapping up the puncture too tightly and, with her foul mood worsened to a point of non-violence, slunk off to her uncomfortable couch while letting her clothes wash out again.

* * *

**((Short chapter, but setting up for the climactic next chapter. It's going to be good. At least, I think it will be. And, if it all works out right next chapter, then dear Jackal is going to be taking a dirt nap soon. What everybody has been waiting for all along.))**


	6. Witch Hunt

_"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."_

* * *

A week since she had let the kid free, and nothing had happened to her yet. Jackal was getting highly suspicious.

Her hand pulsed with pain at every heartbeat; she had it wrapped up shoddily, and it didn't seem infected. Maybe because she dumped a bottle of peroxide on/in it, hissing and spitting like a cat and letting out garbled swears. But it still hurt, and her hand was unusually stiff. She ignored it for the moment, heading on walking down the sidewalk. Back by that same TV store, Jackal stopped and peered in. Lo and behold, that kid she'd let go was on television, saying something. Jackal quickly skated into the shop, listening to every word with a quickly raising pulse.

'The young boy, Minato Ikari, was accosted with his mother on a walk by their home. His mother was killed brutally, by none other than the prolific serial killer Jackal. This is the testimony he gave, as delivered by the head of the police himself.'

The camera switched off to that old policeman, looking very grim as he spoke.

'The young boy was attacked with his mother by none other than Jackal. He states that the killer let him run away in a moment of weakness, after watching his mother killed before his eyes. This is a video showing his interview about what has happened.' The screen switched over to that young boy in a police interrogation room, and a woman with a kind voice attempting to coax answers from him.

"What happened when you were walking with your momma?" She asked him gently, as he had his knees drawn up to his chest and his head down on them. He lifted his head up, sniffling, before starting to talk.

"We were walking, 'cos momma said it was good for a person. And then there was a red monster, and it was attacking momma." He whimpered, shying away from the woman's touch. "And what did the monster do?" She asked him, and it took a few minutes for him to begin again.

"It hurt her."

"How did it hurt her, Minato?"

He didn't answer for a moment, muttering something about a knife. And then he went off, near babbling.

"And there was red everywhere, and momma looked sad, and scared. And then the monster picked me up and hurt my neck, and I saw that it was a lady and she looked scary. She had long red hair, and a green eye, and an eyepatch, and wore lots of red, and she was about to hurt me, before she dropped me and told me to run away. And then she yelled at me, and I ran away from her, and momma didn't follow, momma didn't get up!!" He dissolved into howling cries, as the camera went off and back to the police officer.

"This is a sketch of what we think this killer looks like, from the boy's account."

And he lifted up a sketch of a woman with long red hair, a single vivid green eye (they got the color tone wrong), a black eyepatch, and a snarl. Only a few slight things were wrong on the picture, but it looked almost identical to the real Jackal herself. The policeman set it down, before beginning to speak again.

"We have found red hairs at the crime scenes, along with unidentified blood at a few sites. This backs up the boy's story. At the moment, we are searching for this woman to apprehend for questioning." He tapped his finger on the portrait, another of which was set up on the side of the screen for viewers.

'If you have any information regarding this person, please call...' The anchor trailed off, as Jackal whirled around to see people staring at her. Her hair was back in a ponytail, but that didn't hide the fact that she had the eyepatch, the hair color, the eye color, everything else. Seeing people starting to get out their phones in an attempt to be discreet, Jackal began to walk as fast as she could, heading out of the shop and down the street, attempting to get away from the crowd.

_'I knew it was a fucking bad idea to let the kid live. Now look at the shit I'm in, I'll...what...I...'_ it all trailed off into nothing when the imposing figure of a muscle-bound man was in front of her, blocking her path with a hard stare. Jackal looked up at him, seeing that stare and attempting to walk around. As she did, a huge hand caught her shoulder and tossed her back in front of him, to the ground.

"You're not going anywhere. A kid says you're a murderer." He rumbled, as Jackal stood again and her eyes narrowed to slits, before opening in friendly, wide and happy orbs.

"Well, I can't really argue with that, can I?" She queried, and he shook his head. As he did, a roundhouse kick to the jaw sent the man staggering and Jackal vaulting over his outstretched arm and past him, keeping a snarl on her lips.

"Fucking idiots, getting in my way." She muttered darkly, dashing through the crowd. A glance paid back alerted her to seeing a police car turning the corner, policemen jumping out to look at the fallen man and then at her as she ran off, a red blur in a sea of business suits. The sun was already going down, nearly past the horizon, and Jackal knew she was screwed. She whirled around a corner, running down an alley with people shouting at her back.

Finally she was about to escape the yells, when as she was running, her entire body spasmed painfully and she went falling to the ground, letting out a choked cry of pain as she did. More shouts; they'd heard her, they knew where she was. Her hand was pulsing painfully again, though now it would occasionally spasm itself, and painfully. She held the wounded hand to her chest, wondering what the hell was wrong with it. Her foot that she'd kicked the couch with was also in pain now, as it had been all week. Everything was falling on her at once, and Jackal was getting desperate as she pushed back to her feet and began running again, as hard as she could.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit, fuck!!" The mad mantra was repeated over and over again, the 'fuck' coming as Jackal turned a corner and was face-to-face with a cop, who had a gun. He fired at the same time she pulled her knife, slashed, and ran. The man's scream of pain was behind her as she continued running, now seeing a deeper color of red blooming on her shoulder and soaking through the material. Jackal only held her good hand over the bullet wound, continuing to run as fast as she could muster now. Cop cars with their sirens sounded off too close for comfort, as Jackal turned a corner and saw them at her back, before she nimbly jumped on the dumpster, onto the low roof, and made a run for the fire escape ladder hanging dutifully as always. She would grab it, head inside, and...and...do something, do anything at all.

The police cars were under her, just pulling up to the alley and the policemen getting out of their cars with weapons drawn, shouting at her to give up. Jackal ignored them, ignored the blood trail heading down after her steps from bullet wounds that she hadn't realized had happened, ignored everything as she leaped for the ladder, her good hand extended to grab that same rung on the metal fire escape ladder. Her fingers closed around it, her foot hooked onto the bottom rung, and she felt her weight finally fall upon the rusted steel.

She was falling.

The sound of metal giving way beneath her fingers was what reached her ears first, before Jackal recognized the feeling of falling, falling, falling, at least fifteen feet down to the unforgiving cement. Her foot had caught on that last rung, and as the rung had broken completely to hang limply and slip from her hand, and she had fallen, caused her to be falling on her back. Desperately, Jackal attempted to right herself and land on her feet, but only succeeded in landing on one foot completely crooked and feeling horrible pain in her ankle as she hit the ground, and slammed into the concrete. The air was knocked out of her, and she started coughing and gasping loudly. Hand were one her, trying to apprehend her, while someone screamed to the owner to get the hell back. The one with his hands on Jackal was treated with a knife in his throat, before he staggered backwards away from her as she stood slowly, leaning on the wall while the man collapsed and was dragged off by his teammates.

"Jackal, surrender yourself immediately. No point in dragging this standoff on and on, when we both know what's going to happen in the end." The man with the megaphone called, and Jackal looked up to see none other than the police officer that had wanted her captured so very badly. She leaned against the wall, spasms of pain hitting her now and then as her arm jerked around with it, her breathing heavy and her body covered in blood. Hers.

"Police...chief...so you finally won, eh?" She breathed out, to his surprise. He quickly regained himself, keeping wary of her.

"...Yes. Now give yourself up."

Jackal stood from the wall, in the alley with her own blood dripping down and pooling at her feet, as she stared up at the sky. The rain was falling lightly, cold and unforgiving. It plastered her hair to her face, the clear rainwater running down her arms and dripping off her fingers with a pink tint to it.

"I...this...has been the most fun...I've had in a long time." She mumbled, keeping her calm, clear and nearly lachrymose eyes on the sky. She moved to look at police officers again, before pulling out her spare knives and brandishing them.

"Jackal, we don't need to end it this way." The police chief told her, though his voice was quiet. He knew it would end this way; it was Jackal, after all. And it was in her eyes. He never really thought he'd catch her, but one slip up, one strand of humanity, and she was sent crashing down. No good deed goes unpunished.

"Police chief, I had fun. You were the reason I kept on going; for the thrill of being hunted. But it's over now." Jackal murmured, hearing their guns click as they raised them to aim at her. Jackal began walking forward slowly, before breaking out into a full-out suicide run towards the gunmen. Blood stained her face, her chest, her bullet wounds, everything, but she still had that slasher grin on her face. It had been a good ride, and now it was time to get off. Hell didn't seem so bad, now.

The last thing Jackal heard was the order to fire given with a bit of a depressed tone, and a cacophony of gunfire. She was dead before she hit the cold, wet cement.


	7. The Meeting

Thick blackness, smothering and suffocating. Horrible.

And then there was light.

She sat up, finding herself on the concrete. That blast of gunfire should've killed her, most definitely should have. Jackal looked at the deadly still scene before her, a wall of policemen with smoking guns all pointed at her. She didn't feel pain, and that was alarming in its own right. As she looked down, she saw a...a chain going from her chest.

"The hell is this?" Jackal mumbled, touching it and tracing the length of the chain with her eyes. She looked at it, tracing the chain all the way to the thing on the concrete beside her. And that was when her heart stopped.

"Wh..."

Jackal looked in shock at her own dead body, laying still on the concrete as the rain pounded down around her. The corpse's blood red hair fanned out around its head, left cheek down against the oddly warm concrete and the bad right hand reaching out to nothing. And the soul of Jackal was staring right into her body's single, blank, empty eye. The chain wasn't connected; with a tug, it snaked across the pavement with an unsettling rattle towards the dead woman, who was beginning to notice that her corpse's blood was pooling around it in the rain, and running into a gutter. It was also staining her hand.

"I...is that...?" Was all the woman got out, before she watched in silence as the police chief moved forward, attempting to gain a pulse. Fingers on her neck detected nothing, and the man shook his head slowly but in such a small motion that nobody would ever see it lest they were right beside him.

"You'll go down in the books, Jackal. You were one sick bitch, but can't say I won't miss the chase." He muttered, before turning and acting as if it never happened while addressing his men.

"The serial killer known only as 'Jackal' is...dead." He announced gruffly, and heard a sequence of quiet cheers from his men. He walked forward as another policeman walked towards the chief, and Jackal heard him talk again.

"Send in the message to HQ, and for God's sake, don't tell the media until we move the damn body. Last thing I want is paparazzi up my ass."

The secondary officer nodded in compliance, as other policemen were already shooing away cameramen trying to snap pictures of the corpse of Jackal. The police chief headed towards one, grabbing the camera and throwing it to the ground. "Hey, no cameras goddammit! Police photographers only! No, I don't give a damn if that was an expensive camera or not; get the hell out of here!"

Jackal watched them throw a sheet over her body, getting ready to move it. Her legs were numb. She was dead, but she was still here, to watch it all. She moved, standing up, and began to walk.

"Hell, where are you when I need you?" Jackal muttered, continuing to walk. She sidestepped all the people buzzing around, the police chief looking sort of depressed that his favorite prey was captured (Jackal had become fond of the man, actually. It was a sick dynamic of prey and predator, and she would miss leaving toying messages to enrage him with), all the photographers trying to snap a picture and be the first to sell it to the magazines, past them all. She picked up the chain and wrapped it around her neck like a scarf (or a noose), feeling pain throughout her whole being as she moved it and tugged it while doing so. She just kept walking, without knowledge of where to go.

"What next?" She asked aloud, stopping in an empty lot full of trash and junk. Jackal had no idea of where to go next, no idea of what she should do. But she fell deathly silent as a harsh chuckling came from behind her, and Jackal tensed up in preparation to run as she turned halfway, looking behind her warily. From behind a trash heap walked the tallest man she'd ever seen, clothed in near pure white, and with...well, one eye. He had a stupid-looking spoon hood behind his head, long black hair, and a look on his face that entailed nothing but bad omens.

"Depends." His voice was slick, something between a hiss and a croon. Deadly. The man was leaning against the heap now, staring down on Jackal, who happened to look a hell of a lot like something about to be eaten alive at that moment in time. She quickly regained her composure, putting a snarl on her face and stepping back in a nervous twitch with a hand reaching for her knives, if they were even still there.

"Who the fuck are you?" Jackal kept her voice steady, vicious, but the tone was devoid of sureness that she wasn't hopelessly outclassed. The unknown man's bangles (bracelets, if you'd rather) jingled as he shifted his hand to wave it a bit in the air, as if he were dispelling her nervousness with a single gesture. "Little foulmouthed for a first meeting, aren't you, Jackal?"

The woman froze, now knowing that this man knew who she was. That was dangerous. Then, she recalled another fact that froze her blood.

"You...can see me?" Her hand laid over her heart, gesturing to the fact that she was invisible to everyone else in the area. And to her question, the dangerous man began to smile a bit wider, a bit...well, more viciously. "Yeah, what of it? Just 'cos they can't, doesn't mean _nobody_ can. But you're gonna be hard-pressed to find anybody else that can see you. Anybody that won't want to throw your ass down into Hell or eat you alive, anyway." He watched Jackal tense up, the reality of the situation becoming even heavier on her shoulders now.

"Are you...some kind of angel?"

The question was answered with laughter. Sharp, humorless laughter. The hair on the back of Jackal's neck raised at the sound of it, and the look in the stranger's eye as he laid it upon her again.

"Depends on your definition." He was being very vague, and it was pissing Jackal off. She sighed in frustration, glaring harshly at him as he stood up from the rubble and eyed her as she spoke, pissed.

"You're being real goddamn unhelpful, prick. Now you tell me what the hell is happening, or I'll slit your throat." Her knives were gone, of course, but Jackal grabbed a broken bottle and brandished it as a weapon while waving it threateningly at him. In an instant he was gone, and Jackal was threatening thin air.

A second later, a hand was around the wrist holding the bottle, jerking it up roughly as another closed around her throat too tightly for her to breathe.

"I don't take orders from you, bitch." His voice was right in her ear, snarling, pissed. And his hands were so goddamn cold, like the heart of a glacier, and having them on her skin almost burned. She lashed out with the bottle, and felt it connect, but it was as if she was slicing a brick wall. He hissed in annoyance, before his hand moved to cover hers and forced her to crush the bottle with her bare hand. A choked yelp came out in a gutteral gasp from the woman Nnoitra Jiruga was currently tormenting, and he noted with pleasure as the blood ran down from her forcefully clenched fist and down her arm, while he moved his hand around her throat to loosen and instead push her chin straight up, so she would be looking directly up at him.

"Listen, you don't have a chance against me. So you better shut the fuck up and do what I tell you to, before I throw you to one of those things." He jerked her around, to see a...a thing that was lumbering down the street. It looked like some huge dog thing, though a grinning white mask adorned its face. A person was running from it, and Jackal recognized the woman she'd killed the other day, the one whose son she let go and got her killed. The beast caught up with her, and tore her limb from limb before eating her alive. Nnoitra noticed as the color drained from Jackal's face, as she watched the beast notice Nnoitra and go scampering off, terrified. If a huge maneating monster was afraid of this guy, she was in deep, deep shit.

"But things like that are the least of your worries, bitch." He was speaking in her ear, as she flinched at the closeness. He let go of her hand, let go of her face and instead got a fistful of her bright red hair, using it to drag her around by. Jackal staggered after him as he began to walk, dragging her with him by the hair ruthlessly. She resisted, and he got sick of it, apparently.

"Quit...fucking...squirming!" Nnoitra spat, jerking her forward by the hair and slamming his knee into her gut. Jackal let out a small yelp which turned into a hiss of pain, still doubled over. Next, he jerked her head and slammed her face into his knee, watching her crumple with disgust.

"Fucking useless. At least put up a damn fight, or it's just really fucking pitiful. Makes me think twice about taking you back with me."

Jackal moved to hands and knees, hanging her head and spitting blood onto the ground. She raised her head and glared at him, digging her nails into the dirt as she spoke.

"Fuck off, dickwipe."

That little outburst earned her a kick in the teeth, and as she hit the ground, Nnoitra kicked her hard in the ribs to see her go rolling a few feet. He stamped after her, thoroughly pissed at her mouthiness. Sure, he'd expected a fight, but not for her to be so goddamn annoying when he tried to get her.

"Stupid...ass...slut...watch...your...fucking...mouth!!" Each word was punctuated by a stomp on her prone body, and by the 'watch', she wasn't making noise anymore. Seeing that she wasn't moving either, he hissed under his breath and grabbed her by the hair, dragging her up to about his level, round two feet off the ground. She was either unconscious or dead. He saw her chest rising gently still, and saw that she was just unconscious. Bleeding from the mouth and hand, but unconscious.

"Good. Don't want to kill her off too soon."

Reaching back, Nnoitra opened a Gargantua and turned, throwing her over his shoulder and walking inside. By the time he was finished with her, she'd have wished a shinigami had rolled around and sent her to Hell.


	8. Kidnapped

"You're a prick."

"I'm gonna snap your goddamn neck if you don't shut the hell up."

Two people were arguing on the desert sands of Hueco Mundo. A redheaded woman practically begging to have her tongue pulled out, and a tall man itching to do it. He wouldn't, of course; why do that to the bitch and ruin any chances of the pleasant surprise that she might give a really good blowjob? At the moment, Nnoitra had her by the wrist and was dragging her across the dunes, Jackal having stopped actually walking awhile back and now letting him drag all of her weight just to piss him off. It was working. A sudden jerk and she was sent staggering forward, unless she wanted to fall face-first into the gritty sand. She didn't get too far before a kick was delivered right to her ass, making her fall into the sand face-first anyway.

"Fucker!" Jackal spat, also spitting out grains of glass-like white sand that was digging into her hands as she moved to her knees. His sharp laughter echoed behind her, mirthful and cruel.

"Already on your knees? Little fast, don't ya think?" Nnoitra taunted, walking past her and casually grabbing a handful of her hair as he went by. Considering Jiruga was so tall, that meant that as he walked nonchalantly and dragged her along with him, Jackal was still on her knees and struggling to stand. She eventually got to her feet, and now made sure to keep up with him as he grabbed the back of her neck and continued.

That had been followed by complete silence between captor and captive. Right around until Jackal finally noticed an enormous white building looming in the distance.

"What. The fuck. Is that."

The silence was broken. Nnoitra huffed in annoyance, muttering something about bitches never shutting up before grabbing Jackal's upper arm, dragging her close to him and then sonidoing to shorten the distance between them and the building. To Jackal, it felt like her arm was being jerked out of socket, mainly because Nnoitra wasn't really all too careful about keeping her where she wouldn't get injured. But when Jackal opened her eyes again, they were right at the door and walking inside. Everything else was sort of a blur; lots of white, people talking, and the fact that Nnoitra's grip on her arm was getting tighter and tighter. Eventually they went through another pair of doors and he tossed her forward, watching her spill face-first onto the ground.

"Nnoitra, it's good to see you," A voice sounded out high above her, and Jackal lifted her head and craned her neck to see who it was, though her hair acted as a red veil that hid him from her vision. "And you've brought me a gift. At least it's something that knows respect."

Jackal didn't move, now staring at the floor. She was somewhere that made her serial killing inconsequential; these people weren't human, and she was.

"Yes, Aizen-sama. I wanted to request that this one be made an Arrancar." Nnoitra was speaking now, and there was a certain tone of respect in his voice that showed Jackal that she should most likely do the same. Fear was making her much more compliant than she should be, at least when she was surrounded by people like this creepy tall guy that had kidnapped her. She didn't notice the footsteps coming towards her, so wrapped up in her situation, and it wasn't until someone had hooked their fingers in the front of her shirt and dragged her to her feet did she notice that they were there. It was a man with an eerily large smile, now using his free hand to tip her chin up so that he could see her face.

"Well, at least Nnoitra has a fellow in his situation," He tapped Jackal's eye patch with long, spidery fingers, and then he frowned. "She looks scared. Poor thing. I'd be scared too if I died and Nnoitra was the first face I saw. What's your name?" He asked, and when Jackal couldn't summon the words, he tapped her on the cheek twice before dropping her and watching her fall to her knees.

"Well, it looks like you traumatized her, Nnoitra." He told the man, and Nnoitra shrugged.

"Oh well."

"Not the reason you brought her anyway, is it?"

"What, to hear her talk? Oh hell no. She was whining the entire way up here. Sounds to me like she's terrified of _you_."

Jackal was watching the two of them talk, before wondering about the other man and shifting so that she could see him. And she stared up, up, up, at the top of a huge white throne and at the man sitting in it. And as she made eye contact with him, Jackal froze completely. Just something about the way he looked at her absolutely terrified her. And he was watching her with amusement as well.

"Nnoitra," He got the man's attention as he spoke, "You can have your toy. I rather like having something around that knows who to respect, and it also seems sensitive to Gin and I's strong reiatsu. But you're going to have to turn it into a hollow before I can do anything."

She was jerked to her feet by her hair and dragged back against Nnoitra, still unable to speak.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks." He seemed distracted, already dragging her out the large doors. The last thing Jackal saw of that room, before she heard Jiruga mumbling something she couldn't hear, was the smiling man (she guessed his name was Gin) now waving goodbye.


	9. The Forest

**((Warning: rape in this chapter. You can probably guess the specifics right now.))**

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* * *

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"Alright, time to turn you into a hollow."

Not long after they had left the throne room, Nnoitra had begun to do that teleportation technique Jackal couldn't even comprehend (how did he move that fast? She had no idea), and so she had closed her eyes and just went with it, locked in a painfully tight hold against him. When she felt him stop, the tips of her boots scraping the ground, she opened her eyes and glanced around wherever they were. Large, crystalline trees surrounded them, and it was dark as well. Now there were even trees in a giant desert. Great.

"Is this a...forest?" She asked, tentatively, a little dumbfounded from the awe of the titanic trees around them.

"Forest of Menos. Have fun, you bitch."

And with that, she was dropped in that Menos Forest instead of crushed against her captor's side. She patted herself down, for no real reason other than it seemed to be a good idea at the time. Nnoitra was gone. Good, she could find her way out of this acid trip gone bad and maybe get one of those shinigami guys to take her somewhere else. If shinigami weren't there in this...desert (with forests, what the fuck), then they were probably in another world, or at least another part of the desert world she was in right now.

A howl that sounded like a scream cut her thoughts like butter and Jackal jerked back to look at where it came from, feeling terror bubbling up in the back of her throat again. Something big was coming towards her. Its weight pounded against the ground, and before she knew it, Jackal was on her feet and running in the opposite direction. Menos Forest, she should've known it was a shitty place full of more shitty monsters. She ran wildly, sprinted and continued to do so even as her legs ached and exhaustion threatened to bring her down, spurred on by all the screams and the stamping of large, horrific creatures, _things_, swarming around her and seeking a meal. And even as she ran like a bat from Hell, and even as unseen monsters flitted between the trees in the far distance in front of her, causing her to turn and run in another direction entirely, she could hear high-pitched, shuddering laughter echoing between the trees as loudly as her own ragged breathing. Of course that one-eyed fuck was watching her, waiting for her to fall so that he could do whatever he was going to do with her, turn her into a monster just like him...with the help of that absolutely terrifying man on the throne, whatshisfacezen, or that man that didn't stop smiling the entire time she saw him. They were dangerous people. They could do things to her that would drive her even more insane than she already was.

A towering beast lumbered out before her, and Jackal almost felt her sanity crumble into her hands.

"A whole...rare for the Forest..." A slithery voice came from the beast, a masked creature with rows of grinning teeth fused upon the bone, interlocking in an almost artistic design. The jaws parted and a long (too long, too long to be normal, to be _human_) slid out, oozing venomous saliva that dripped to the forest floor and sizzled. It was at least quadruple her height, and the flat golden-black eyes narrowed slightly before shooting wide open. As they did, it screamed in a horrible, horrible falsetto tone, and it lumbered towards her. Jackal clenched both hands over her ears, digging her fingers into her hair as her single eye widened as far as it would go. Nnoitra, he looked human. She could pretend he was human. Those two in the throne room, they were human (in appearance, at least). But this...this wasn't human. This was a horrific mockery of natural proportion, of _humanity itself_, and it and all its ilk represented a void that Jackal had not been prepared to stare so fully into.

The sudden show of something so hideous, so very _eldritch _in proportion, very nearly drove her to gibbering madness.

A hideously clawed paw slammed near her body and broke the mad trance, and Jackal began to run. She didn't know which direction she was running in, she didn't care if she was just going to run back where she came from. She just needed to get away from that thing. As she ran, it whirled around and swung its claws at her. They raked her back and the tip of the middle finger's claw hooked over her shoulder and gouged it as well, and Jackal screeched with pain as it did. But she didn't dare stop running. Unfortunately for the creature, Jackal was smaller a creature and, though not faster, could move with more agility to weave through the trees and disappear, and though she ran and ran and ran until she could run no more and collapsed behind a tree, by the time she did, the thing was far behind her.

It had been a long time since Jackal had felt so very vulnerable. So very _human_. She was sure that she had been a being above death and danger and fear and all those silly normal things, and so she had forgotten what it feels like to have a predator tracing your steps, something wanting to draw your blood and revel in the sight of it spilling. She now knew what her victims felt as the agony surged from her gouged shoulder and back, and it was a sobering taste of her own cruelty. She sat at the base of the tree, pulling her knees to her chest and clamping one hand over her bloodied shoulder tightly, laying her forehead on her knees and staying like that for as long as she dared. Her shoulder and back screamed with pain, and her legs ached beyond comprehension, and the blood from her wounds was sticking to her cheek and neck, plastering her already dark red hair to her skin and dyeing it another shade darker.

Jackal didn't cry. Crying is for prey and humans and people that don't kill other people for the rush. But damn it, what else could she do but sit there and wait for something to devour her? Or possibly, wait to bleed to death; maybe if she bled to death, she would go somewhere other than wherever that prick Jiruga wanted her to go. She doesn't want to be here anymore, that was for sure. She slowly faded out of consciousness, falling into horribly-needed sleep in that deadly place despite herself.

* * *

The sound of footsteps up ahead of her snapped her from her very light sleep, and she rolled up to a pained sitting position; they weren't booming stamps, but actual steps. Maybe it was someone there to help her.

A glimmer of hope dies in that dim forest as she sees Nnoitra walking towards her with an absoltuely predatory grin.

She moved to her feet in a shaky, pained sort of way as he came towards her, already moving backwards. Her legs still ached, but she would run as hard as she could if she had to. And when she saw him moving close enough, reaching for her, she turned and ran again. She weaved between trees, a tactic that had worked before, but finding herself much weaker than she normally was. Her running was no longer brisk and agile; it was sluggish, as every new step became harder and harder to perform.

"Takes too damn long for even hollows to kill you," A voice stated in a sneer right before her, a moment later Jackal slamming into Nnoitra's chest. It was like running full-speed into a brick wall; there was no way this man was even close to human, as his skin seemed to be like steel as she bounced off of him. She was knocked back a step, before trying to turn and run with the momentum. Jackal had sucked in a surprised breath, a gasp of terror and shock, before trying to flee him again. He caught her upper arm and dragged her back, tossing her full-force into a crystalline tree and watching her crumple lifelessly to the ground.

"Pretty sure they're thinking that I want you kept a whole for some reason. Fucking morons can't even eat a soul without being told," He snarled, walking towards her in a steady, unhurried pace, as Jackal wheezed on the ground, trying to catch the air knocked out of her with the impact of hitting the tree. Blood painted her neck and right cheek, the clothing on her left shoulder stained deep carmine, and as she moved to her hands and knees, she was trying to catch her breath. He grabbed a handful of her deep red colored hair and pulled hard, so that she was turned up and her face was visible to him, and when Jackal opened her eyes, she saw that he was beginning to smirk in a dangerous, absolutely vicious way.

"Have to say, kinda like it when you're bleeding," He stated, and she opened her one eye and managed a weak snarl.

"Fuck you."

He slapped her across the face, as hard as he could, and she went careening to the forest floor, sent sprawling by the sheer force of it. She hadn't been this mistreated even in life; why had the afterlife have to be so much worse than the living world? Jackal noted that she could taste blood; probably a split lip, as her lip was hurting at the moment.

"You just don't shut the fuck up, do you?" He asked, rhetorically, grabbing her by the hair again (it was long and easy to hold onto, and he liked that) and pulling her up to look at him once again. She wasn't crying._ Why the **fuck** wasn't she crying?_ He liked to make them cry, because that meant that they were giving up and they knew he was better than them. And the Arrancar women he'd slapped around before **knew** that if they cried for him, then he might not be so cruel towards them as he _could_ be. Jackal didn't know this, had no way of knowing, but damn it, that didn't _matter_.

Blood ran down from her split lip and ran down her chin, the small bead of blood continuing down her throat and disappearing under the collar of her shirt. Her single green eye was half-closed, squinted in pain, and Nnoitra had an idea. He was just going to eat her soul himself and get the fucking process over and done with, but why rush things, when there was so much opportunity?

Jackal didn't miss the sudden appearance of a cruel grin.

"Alright, you know what, Jackal?" He began, shaking her by her hair slightly just for the hell of it, "Since the fucking hollows around here are stupid as shit, I'm gonna finish what I started, just because of all the dumbfucks around here not knowing what the hell to do. But..." He tugged her up further, making her move to her knees just to keep her hair attached to her scalp, before starting to undo his pants. Her eyes widened as she recognized was he was wanting and, to Nnoitra's surprise, began to thrash violently.

"No! No, no no, _**NO!!"**_ She screeched, twisting in his grip, ripping out hair as she did, but he just slammed her against the tree hard and she went limp, for the most part, as the back of her skull collided with the (fucking hard) tree, and black spots bloomed in her vision.

"Mellow the fuck out," He snarled, "And open your goddamned mouth before I rip your fucking jaw off trying to get it open myself."

He hooked his fingers behind the hinges of her jaw and pushed, incredibly hard, until she could stand the pressure no longer and her clenched jaws popped open. She didn't have much time to see what was happening before he shoved her face down and she took him in her mouth, gagging. Her hands pressed against his midsection as she tried to push herself away from him, to no avail as he cupped the back of her head and began to jerk her back and forth as he liked, sneering and sighing under his breath.

"You bite me, I'll rip your jaw off anyway, and I'll pull out all your teeth with my bare hands, and rip out all your organs through of your fucking mouth," Nnoitra growled in warning to her, feeling her teeth beginning to lower ominously, and she opened her mouth wider to give some notice of compliancy.

And when he saw her face, and saw the tears running down her cheeks, and felt her beginning to sob around him, he began to laugh. It was fucking gorgeous.

"You know," He breathed, and found his voice husky as he approached climax, "I think I like it when your makeup runs like that." It was as close to a compliment as she was ever going to get, and it was happening during rape. He leaned a hand against the tree to steady himself and continued to forcefully slam her face against his pelvis over and over again, groaning softly under his breath now and then. Not ripping out her tongue was a good idea.

When he came, it was about a half inch from Jackal's lips, and she cried out when he made sure that he came on her face. It hung in her hair like pearls against a deep ruby backdrop and ran down her cheek like the tears and the blood, and he spent that moment admiring his work of ruining her face so wonderfully. He did let go of her hair then and she collapsed to her knees again, cradling a broken nose from it being crushed against his hips again and again and again as he forced her. The blood ran down her chin and she was still crying, sobbing, as he fixed himself back up again, laughing quietly.

"Ha, for a murderous, mouthy bitch, you're not bad," He sneered, laughter in his voice, as she sobbed on the floor. He felt satisfaction at the sight, but there was also disgust at seeing her broken so easily. All he made her do was a blowjob, after all; he was being _**fucking generous**_ in not just fucking the bitch the regular way right then and there. Ah, that was for later. "But now, I'm kind of _tired._ I'll be back when some hollow eats you alive, probably won't take long for a dipshit to figure it out. See ya."

Nnoitra turned and began to walk, completely unbothered by what he'd done. Really, why should he be bothered? She was his plaything anyway; a _possession_ of his. He would get to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do with her. He'd be back later on anyway; sense out her reiatsu after she became a hollow, drag her back for Aizen to turn into an Arrancar, and then maybe fuck her on his bed until she couldn't move. That sounded good.

Jackal didn't notice he was gone for a good long while, spending an innumberable amount of time curled up on the ground, clutching her face and weeping. She had never been raped before, much less by such a disgusting monster masquerading as a man, and she felt absolutely filthy. Not to mention that her relatively lithe frame was absolutely wracked with agony, from her broken (smashed, more or less) nose to her gouged shoulder raked by that larger monster's long razor-sharp claws. She wanted, above all else, not to be in Jiruga's grasp, and she would've given anything to be out of this hell.

More footsteps caught her ear after such a long time completely alone with her sobs, and terror seized her heart as she thought that Nnoitra had become impatient and decided to finish her off himself. But her body hurt too much for her to try and run away again. So she only sat up as quickly as she could and backed up against the tree in terror, seeing one of the masked monsters heading towards her.

So this was it. This was her death.

Her second death, at least.

It reached out for her again, before the arm, in a flash, fell to the ground and the monster screeched. The head was sliced in half right before Jackal, and she watched as the monster dissipated into thin mist, a man-shaped figure sheathing what looked like a sword and turning towards her. She, her senses highly addled, flattened her back against the tree as completely as she could, but found herself too exhausted to do anything else but watch the person approach her. It seemed to be a real human, a red headed man wearing a brown-furred coat with those monster's masks placed on it here and there, and he seemed to stare at her ruined face for a moment, before drawing his sword again. She only stared, blankly, as he tipped her chin up, flipped the sword around to where the hilt faced her, and pressed the end of the sword against her forehead. She wanted to say something, anything, but could only stare blankly at him before things faded out to black, and she was gone.


End file.
